THE Francis report on the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust makes for grisly reading.

Each one of the 290 recommendations must now be worked through.

Care is such a precious commodity and must be at the very heart of our NHS.

Perhaps we’ve begun to lose our way somewhere along the line and I hope lessons learned from this unedifying chapter in the NHS’s generally distinguished history will get us back on track.

I’m appalled at the appearance of horse meat in the food chain and disappointed by the involvement of several top supermarkets. It’s perfectly possible for horse meat to be of high standard and processed to proper hygiene standards but any suggestion of criminal involvement starts alarm bells ringing.

Horse meat is freely available in other countries, even sought after as a delicacy, but people must be told the truth about what they’re buying.

There has been concern expressed recently about inward migration, especially from Bulgaria and Romania, EU accession states. I share the Government’s desire to apply transitional controls to mitigate the effects of our treaty obligations. We must also look closely at the relative generosity of our welfare provision, which is likely to act as something of a magnet.

The Rottweiler-like Public Accounts Committee published its report on the effectiveness of government spending nearly half its foreign aid budget through multinational organisations like the UN and EU. These outfits then distribute funds as they see fit and, apparently, cannot be relied on to do it well. I absolutely support the Government in delivering properly targeted aid to the world’s poorest and know that it is anxious to avoid the inefficient use of resources that potentially damages intended beneficiaries and risks drawing the whole process into public disrepute, fuelling public cynicism about aid in an age of austerity.